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National Volunteer Week! This special week offers opportunities to thank some of America’s most valuable assets - our volunteers - and to recognize the myriad of ways they improve our communities. April is also the month for National & Global Youth Service Day, and Earth Day.
National Volunteer Week reflects the power that volunteers have to “inspire by example” - volunteers both encourage those they help and motivate others to serve! Find out how you, too, can participate in the week’s many offerings. You can plan and publicize recognition activities on local, state or national levels, nominate volunteers for awards, get your organization certified to present the President’s Volunteer Service Award to deserving volunteers during National Volunteer Week (as well as throughout the year), and of course you can celebrate volunteers by helping with this week of service projects around the state. You’ll be glad you did! Visit our Service Projects in Kansas webpage for a list of service projects around the state, which will be updated through the coming weeks and will feature photos and stories.
For more information, please visit the Points of Light Seasons of Service webpage.
National & Global Youth Service Day
National & Global Youth Service Day is the largest service event in the world. Millions of youth around the world will participate in the 20th Annual National & Global Youth Service Day in April 2008.
Goals of National & Global Youth Service Day are to MOBILIZE youth to identify and address the needs of their communities through service, to SUPPORT youth on a life-long path of service and civic engagement, and to EDUCATE the public, the media, and policymakers about the year-round contributions of young people as community leaders. On National & Global Youth Service Day, a public awareness and education campaign that highlights the amazing contributions that young people make to their communities 365 days a year, young people will design and lead service-learning projects in areas ranging from literacy and the environment, to healthcare, hunger, and help for the elderly.
For more information, please visit www.ysa.org/nysd.
Earth Day was created in 1970 to spark a revolution against environmental abuse and the organizers would not take no for an answer. Neither should we. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Reports have long been expressing confidence that warming impacts are underway. Global warming is real and we're part of the problem. Now, we need to become part of the solution.
Earth Day marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement. On April 22, 1970 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment. Denis Hayes, the national coordinator, and his youthful staff organized massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values. Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, city slickers and farmers, tycoons and labor leaders. The first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species acts.
As 1990 approached, a group of environmental leaders asked Denis Hayes to organize another big campaign. This time, Earth Day went global, mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting the status of environmental issues on to the world stage. Earth Day 1990 gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide and helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. As the millennium approached, Hayes agreed to spearhead another campaign, this time focused on global warming and a push for clean energy. Earth Day 2000 combined the big-picture feistiness of the first Earth Day with the international grassroots activism of Earth Day 1990. For 2000, Earth Day had the Internet to help link activists around the world. By the time April 22 rolled around, 5,000 environmental groups around the world were on board, reaching out to hundreds of millions of people in a record 184 countries. Events varied: A talking drum chain traveled from village to village in Gabon, Africa, for example, while hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Earth Day 2000 sent the message loud and clear that citizens the world 'round wanted quick and decisive action on clean energy. Now, the fight for a clean environment continues. We invite you to be a part of this history and a part of Earth Day. Discover energy you didn't even know you had. Feel it rumble through the grass roots under your feet and the technology at your fingertips. Channel it into building a clean, healthy, diverse world for generations to come. For more information, visit www.earthday.net.
Join our statewide celebration of volunteer service to communities throughout Kansas!
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